With increasing industrial development, diverse electronic equipments are used to achieve various purposes. An electronic equipment comprises a plurality of electronic components. Generally, different kinds of electronic components are operated by using different voltages.
As known, a power supply is essential for many electronic equipments such as personal computers, industrial computers, servers, communication products or network products. Usually, the user may couple a socket of a power supply to a plug of a power cord (i.e. external power source) so as to receive an AC voltage input or DC voltage input. The power supply will convert the input power into a desired output power for powering the electronic equipment.
For general power conversion systems, power distribution systems, power supplying systems and electronic equipments, an instant spark may be generated at the switch contacts due to the electric current flowing therethrough, and the electric arc between the two contacts will melt the switch contacts, which causes damages to the electronic equipment. Moreover, in the power supply, when the input plug of an external power source is contacted with or pulled out from the socket of the power supply, an electric arc may also be resulted and the electronic equipment is accordingly damaged.
Currently, different kinds of electromagnetic arc-suppressing devices, heat-operated arc-suppressing devices or air circuit breakers are used to suppress arc generation. Alternatively, the contacts are covered by current-withstanding alloy and insulating material to prevent damages to the contacts and damages to human bodies. However, these solutions require a certain space and high cost, and are not suitable to be used for the power supply with high power density.
In addition, power supplies are important elements for providing desired power to the electronic equipments of a data-processing system, for example servers of a data center. In order to prevent the damages to the system due to the unintentional or accidental interruption of power, a power cord latching or retaining structure is employed to anchor the power cord on the power supply so as to prevent the plug of the power cord from loosening and dropping from the socket of the power supply and prevent the generation of arc flash due to high electric current flowing through the contacts of the connectors. However, it is still an unsafe protection mechanism to prevent the system from shutting down or damages due to arc flash and unintentional or accidental interruption of power.
Besides, in current data-processing systems, the power management of the power supplying system is carried out by connecting the output plug of the power supply to the server in the data-processing system such that the power can be managed and distributed by the server. However, this method of power management is laboring and inconvenient, and cannot achieve the best power management and distribution, and power protection as well.
To overcome the disadvantages of the prior art described above, there is a need to provide a power supply and a power supplying system used for a data-processing system and having remote power management and power protection function, so as to conform the current demand.